Saturday, August 20, 2016

Don’t Check Your Privilege

Everywhere I look these days it seems somebody wants to tell
somebody else why their opinion doesn’t count.

Not a parent? You should have nothing to say about child rearing.
Not a veteran? Your opinion about war is uninformed by experience. Lack a
uterus? You can’t possibly have a valid take on abortion.

Tal Fortgang wrote a piece about privilege that ran on TIME’s website back in May of
this year in which he declined to defer to those who claim the high ground (we
can’t really call it the ‘moral high ground’, can we?) on various social
issues. He has encountered a steady stream of abuse for his temerity. His detractors, if I have this correct, consider him too privileged
to hold a legitimate opinion on the subject of privilege.

The “Privilege” Thing

If you’ve missed the whole
“privilege” thing entirely, you are probably better off for it. The basic
concept is something like this: If you are perceived to have derived some kind
of benefit from growing up white/male/affluent/etc., you are thereby disqualified from any discussion on just about ... well, anything.

If you have teenagers with access to the Internet, expect
them to try some variant of the privilege argument on you at some point in an
attempt to disqualify your archaic views. It’s all the rage currently.

I say “disqualify” rather than “debate” or “debunk” because the whole
point of an ad hominem argument
is to end it before it starts by declaring the other side unfit to offer their
evidence. The technique is as old as the hills — or at least as old as the
words ad hominem.

But the “privilege” thing is just one way to justify to yourself shutting out the words of those whose line of argument you want nothing to do with. There are lots of others.

The Spirit and the Audience

Paul warns Timothy some listeners might try to disqualify
his teaching on the basis of the fact that he was a young man. You know, the
old “Well, when you’re mature enough to have hair on your chin, you’ll know
better, Sonny” line of argument. To the extent that this sort of carnality can
be countered, the antidote to it, Paul says, is to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity”.

That is no doubt an effective strategy with those inclined
to pay attention to the Spirit of God. But there is no way to make a hard heart
open up to truth aside from the Spirit’s work, no matter how effectively you
adorn that truth with love and good conduct. If they didn’t listen to Paul, to
Stephen or to the Lord himself, I’m not sure you or I can possibly generate
more persuasive arguments or offer more faithful and consistent examples.

Moving in Mysterious Ways

So I’m not going to spend a lot of time telling you how to make yourself heard more effectively. But when I see people running around
shouting “DISQUALIFY!” at each other, it ought to remind me not to use similar tactics
to dismiss those I might normally deem unworthy of a hearing. After all, God
has occasionally spoken in unexpected ways:

Remember Caiaphas? “It is better for you that one man should die for the
people.” Not a good man, but he spoke the truth and God was behind it. Should the truth have been ignored because it came
from an apostate Pharisee?

How about the slave girl that served Naaman’s wife? She alone in Syria knew there was a prophet in Israel who could save her master. Would Naaman’s wife have been smarter to disqualify her
as “just a slave”?

Remember Balaam’s donkey? She saw an angel with
a drawn sword in her path and stopped dead in order to save her master’s life.
Until his donkey complained to him, Balaam was unable to see the angel for
himself. There was an animal with greater spiritual perception than a prophet.

How about the
demons that cried out “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have
you come here to torment us before the time?” Their eschatology was accurate and their Christology was spot on. But, you
know, demons have a bad rep for honesty …

Apostates, slaves, donkeys, demons. Improbable sources of wisdom.

But truth is truth, never mind where it comes from. This is where the “disqualify” crowd go very, very wrong. In their own minds they win the
argument, but they often miss out on important truth because they approach it with fingers firmly wedged in their ears.